


Paring, Paling

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Curvo is a prickly cactus who has never been able to express that someone's hurt him in his life, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, every conversation is a fraught conversation when you're a pair of fucked up Finwean dramamonsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 17:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: Finrod packs to leave Nargothrond for the last time.





	Paring, Paling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [a prompt from Ren](http://paradife-loft.tumblr.com/post/159402468854/44-finrod-and-curufin) on tumblr ("if you really loved me, there wouldn’t be a choice").

“You are so often eager to remove the possibility of choice from your understanding of the world,” Finrod murmured. His voice was calm, without malice, and his gaze did not flinch toward Curufin as he said it, or even away from the trunks full of clothing he now sorted through at all. It was always how he acted, before he was made to speak with some honesty; pretending at detachment, understanding, unflappability and limitless benevolence for his people - but there were none of them here now. Yet he would persist. Curufin often though at moments like this, at this moment, that he hated him.

“And I think you have spent too much time with those Atani, if you begin to adopt such notions,” Curufin replied, letting coldness and distaste show through. “We are constrained by our pasts. Pretending to choose from among equal paths, while ignoring our obligations, is to ignore our nature.”

Ah, now he looked up at him. Not that it was entirely a change for the better - Finrod’s gaze held something of pity, and still that implacable resignedness. “Is this a sudden touch of piety, Curufinwe?” he said, wryness flickering across his mouth before melting back into his otherwise somber composure.

“Don’t be insufferable,” said Curufin testily, as irritation itched under his skin. He took a corner of fabric from one of the robes his cousin had discarded across the lounge sofa, running his fingers across the fine cloth, studying the impressions expertly woven in subtle shades of towering trees and rocky riverbanks. Everything beautiful, he’d likewise cast aside as unsuited; the pile he had assembled now was plain, less pleasing than even war-gear, its lone concession to craftsmanship its powers of camouflage and concealment. Even in this, Finrod abandoned his foundations. Let alone his kingdom, his kin who had provided him much…

What a ruin it made of him. The robes he wore now were light and few, suitable for his private chambers and Curufin would once have appreciated the intimacy it implied; but now the lack of courtly garb only made him look diminished. All for the sake of that damned grasping Man.

“Your thoughts are unbecomingly loud, cousin,” Finrod commented, after a time of folding a few tunics and pairs of breeches back in order. His hand lingered on one of the tunics as he placed it back in the trunk. “And if my current conversation is insufferable, how would you prefer I behaved, hm?”

“You might start by not mocking my family.”

“How sensitive you always are,” was all he replied with, like a musing to chide a child. “I so rarely mean any insult you take against them.”

Curufin’s lips thinned, even as a subdued fury seemed to thicken his blood in his limbs, body singing in time with spirit rather than the one counterbalancing the other. “And what of the insult you make in your entire current purpose?”

Finrod only shook his head. “I understand you think it such, Curufinwe, but this is about my commitments, not yours. And it is my choice to uphold them. I needn’t assuage my conscience by claiming otherwise.”

“If that is how you feel, perhaps it is because you have none,” Curufin replied sharply. Something cold burned in his chest. He hadn’t given his skills and passions to the realm of another for this to be what came of it.

And then Finrod stopped the packing away of his clothes, still for a moment, and then rose. “I am not going to entertain you here if all you wish is speak to me unkindly.” His voice was quiet, but firm - he met Curufin’s eyes with the same quality; Curufin held that gaze with his own refusal to budge.

“Oh? And you call your own words to me something different?”

He didn’t speak, though - did his eyes become less present, more pensive? - but he reached out to pull the set-aside robe from Curufin’s hands, presumably to fold with its fellows. And Curufin, before he even registered the intent himself, interrupted with one of those now-empty hands closing over Finrod’s wrist. It peeked bare from the sleeve of his robe, skin warm under Curufin’s palm.

Their eyes met again.

“You are truly impossible, cousin,” Finrod said, shaking his head slightly, but there was no anger in it. Or perhaps it was simply buried; it was hard to tell, his mind feeling still too sharp and too narrow to discern as he desired. “Though, perhaps my comment on your presence was… over-hasty.”

Curufin did not know whether to doubt his ears or his thoughts, to hear a fragmentary perception of wistfulness in Finrod’s voice at the last. He did not doubt the truth of catching the brief glance he stole down to where Curufin’s hand remained circled about his wrist, though.

After a few moments passed, slowly with hesitation, his eyes still on Finrod’s face, Curufin let his wrist go. The warmth still haunted his palm.


End file.
